ASIA: Enjoyment of the right to food requires a shift from short-term and discriminatory practice

HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
Thirteenth session, Agenda Item 3, Interactive Dialogue with the Special
Rapporteur on the Right to Food

A written statement submitted by the
Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC), a non-governmental organisation with
general consultative status

The enjoyment of the right to food remains
elusive for many across the Asian region. The Asian Legal Resource Centre
(ALRC) will concentrate on specific concerns with regard to the right to
food in India and Indonesia in this written submission to the Human Rights
Council (HRC), although these problems are replicated in many other countries
in South and South East Asia in particular.

On 23 December 2009, Shama, a four-year-old
boy died of malnutrition and diarrhea in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
Shama belonged to the Bhil tribe, Jhabua District, Madhya Pradesh. His
father Galia cultivates four acres of farmland, from which they harvested
just four bags of maize in 2009. The harvest, depending on depleting rainfall
is not sufficient to feed the family of nine. As a result, the family had
to migrate to neighboring districts or states, which made them more vulnerable
to food insecurity. In the last three months, 43 children including Shama
died of malnutrition in three tribal villages in Madhya Pradesh.

Madhya Pradesh is the one of the biggest
contributors to neo-natal and child mortality in the world. The mortality
rate among children under the age of five in the state's tribal community
is far higher than the state and national average. The chance of survival
of a tribal child is low, with 71.4% tribal children being malnourished
and 82.5% children being anaemic.

India has the highest number of malnourished
children in Asia. UNICEF's 2009 report revealed that more than 80% of the
cases of child malnutrition and mortality were found in the tribal and
low caste community. The actual number may be even higher as the government
often denies that children and adults die of malnutrition and starvation.

India's response to cases of hunger has
been inappropriate at best, and often negligent. The quantity of food distributed
by states has decreased, although the total agricultural product concerning
rice or wheat has not. India has failed to address hunger among its tribal
communities. On May 8, 2008, before the Committee on economic, social and
cultural rights, India underlined that it had adopted a comprehensive legal
framework to protect the rights of its tribal population and that it is
committed to the fulfillment of the economic, social and cultural rights
of its entire people.

However, cases of hunger prove that this
is false. Its response and action often come after children die of starvation.
Since 2009, the ALRC and its sister organization, the Asian Human Rights
Commission (AHRC, have been reporting on the situation of child malnutrition
and its causes focusing on four tribal districts - Khandwa, Rewa, Sidhi,
and Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh.

Tribes living in dry land or forest areas
depend economically on agriculture and natural resources from the forest.
Soaring food prices since 2008 and drought for the past few years have
been aggravating food insecurity in tribal predominant areas. Traditionally,
nutritional needs of tribals were met easily by forest resources. Recently,
in the name of forest conservation, tribals are being evicted from their
natural habitation, resulting in gross livelihood insecurity and malnutrition
among them.

Distress migration is often the only
option left for survival, but results in increasing the burden of debt
and food uncertainty. For those who stay, lack of nutrition and an unhygienic
environment cause malnutrition and other sicknesses to the children. In
Jhabua district, only 4.5% of the rural population have access to toilet
facilities, while only 1.5% can access water from a pipe-.

Nevertheless, the government statistical
tools to determine who is living Below the Poverty Line (BPL) and are thus
eligible to food assistance do not take into account the specific agricultural
structures of tribal areas. Possessing land is an indicator of living Above
the Poverty Line (APL) and therefore prevents small landowners, such as
Shama's family, from receiving food assistance.

A new system introduced in 1992-93, called
the targeted public food distribution system, is yet to be fully implemented
in the country. For instance, 200,000 families in Madhya Pradesh are denied
BPL status. The central government has identified only 4.2 million BPL
families against the state's claim of 6.5 million in Madhya Pradesh alone.
To ensure nutrition and food security, the BPL must be abolished and ration
quota must be made universal.

In 2005, the Special Rapporteur on Right
to food, following a mission to India, acknowledged that the marginalization
of tribal people hampers their access to state institutions, including
public programs ensuring food security, which further aggravates their
food insecurity. Approximately 50% of children in the tribal areas are
not registered at childcare centers, denying them supplementary food grain.
This implies that the government does not have accurate data about the
number of tribal children suffering from malnutrition and thus cannot design
specific policies targeting them.

The system talks about institutional
treatment of the malnourished children. However, without infrastructure,
facilities and services it is unrealistic to provide institutional healthcare
to 6.1 million children. Community based intervention for nutritional care
of all children with special attention to malnourished children is required.
The Supreme Court has recommended that such children's right to food to
be addressed in the proposed National Food Security Act.

Discrimination in access to public health
institutions worsens the problem. In its 2008 State of Asia-Pacific Children
Report, UNICEF underlined that in India, "Caste and ethnicity also
play key roles in keeping primary health-care services to some populations
well below national averages". Concretely, this implies that although
parents try to have their malnourished children treated at public health
institutions, they are either denied immediate treatment due to lack of
facilities or are discriminated against at the hospital. For example, tribal
children have to stay in beds next to the toilets and their mothers are
in general not provided with food and water. Furthermore, even at public
health institutions, they often have to pay.

In Madhya Pradesh, 67% of the people
live below the poverty line and 60% of the children are undernourished
while 73.9% of tribal women are anemic. However, the budget for health
service accounts for merely 2.4% out of total state budget. One bed is
available for every 2,425 persons in hospitals, and more than 1300 out
of 5005 doctor posts remain vacant. Although child malnutrition has increased
over the last five years, not one Primary Health Centre has been built
and 1,659 out of 4,708 medical officer posts remain vacant at the Centers.

The food distribution system also often
fails to reach the poor. In its fortieth session in April-May 2008, the
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights expressed concerns about
"reports of corruption, inefficiency and discrimination in distribution
that hamper access to food, particularly by the disadvantaged and marginalized
groups of society" in India. For decades, corruption has prevented
the government from identifying the BPL families. While many public servants
have been identified as BPL, poor tribal communities have often been excluded.
More often than not, food programs have been abused by corrupt officials
and politicians.

The social audit system, the only official
channel through which the poor can make demands fails to function due to
corrupt public servants. Social audit report concerning Jhabua do not mention
the villagers' grievances. They are often either intentionally excluded
from the audit, or, if they dare to speak out with the support of human
rights defenders, are physically abused or even killed by upper caste civil
servants and influential villagers. Denial of freedom of expression and
participation is rooted in a caste-controlled society and bureaucracy.
The lack of a fair legal system through which victims can seek redress
further prevents marginalized communities from enjoying the right to food.
Even the National Human Rights Commission has failed to independently investigate
right to food violations since 2009.

On June 6, 2008, the UN Special Rapporteur
declared that the enjoyment of the right to food "requires that we
focus on the most vulnerable segments of the population. It brings into
the debate requirements of accountability and participation.": In
India as is the case elsewhere in Asia, this remains a major challenge
concerning the protection and enjoyment of rights.

The government targets higher economic
growth and a second green revolution by adopting Genetically Modified (GM)
seeds or food. In Orissa, multinational corporations like POSCO are allowed
to occupy vast areas of land, depriving tribal villagers of their rights
to land and water. In 2005, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food
stated that the overrepresentation of tribal people among those displaced
because of developmental projects reflects serious discrimination. Such
communities' right to food, land and water should be taken into account
in designing developmental activities.

Indonesia is another example of governmental
passivity when confronted with people starving to death, especially in
Papua province. During the first half of 2009, about 113 villagers died
of starvation and associated diseases in seven districts in Yahukimo. 55
villagers had also died of starvation in Yahukimo in 2005. The government
denied these deaths but provided food and food store facilities in some
areas, while arguing that it was difficult to deliver food subsidies to
remote affected areas.

The same situation was repeated in 2009.
Because of a bad harvest, villagers living in the highlands suffered from
a lack of food. While arguing that the areas aredifficult to reach, the
government has repeatedly delayed the distribution of food and medicine.
Langda District, for example, received only 1.4 tons of rice for distribution
to 6000 villagers.

In the short term, governments must take
all necessary actions to ensure the right to food of all persons. T ensure
the enjoyment of he right to food in the long term, States must encourage
the empowerment of local communities and help them to develop sustainable
food production systems. This cannot be done without combating discrimination
and without securing the right to land of indigenous people, notably by
guaranteeing against the risk of arbitrary expulsion from land because
of industrial projects. Currently, the governments of India and Indonesia
have failed to develop such projects and have chosen to focus on short-term
hunger-relief assistance.

The ALRC recalls that the right to food
cannot be fulfilled without general and comprehensive measures to: fight
against corruption; increase the accountability of public institutions,
notably those in charge of food distribution; and provide effective legal
remedies available to all. Consultative mechanisms should be implemented
when decisions that may affect the right to food of certain sectors of
the population have to be taken.

In this context the ALRC requests the
Council to:

1. Provide means and facilitate processes
by which the Rapporteur on the Right to Food can actively engage with States
concerning reported patterns of denial of the right to food;

2. Encourage human rights organisations
by providing more opportunities for them to interact with states as well
as entities within the UN framework in addressing the issue of right to
food and denial thereof;

3. Find means for human rights organisations
to be part of interstate, inter-organizational dialogues with a view to
have effective participation in policy formulating discussions;

4. Encourage states to find means through
dialogue and partnerships to radically shift from food ration subsidy programmes
to food and livelihood guarantee programmes by recognising tribal and ethnic
identities;

5. Develop guidelines for encouraging
community based interventions for nutritional care of children, specifically
for the treatment of Severely Acute Malnourished children.

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About the ALRC: The Asian Legal Resource
Centre is an independent regional non-governmental organisation holding
general consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the
United Nations. It is the sister organisation of the Asian Human Rights
Commission. The Hong Kong-based group seeks to strengthen and encourage
positive action on legal and human rights issues at the local and national
levels throughout Asia.